Posted 3/14/2019 07:43 (#7379489 - in reply to #7378963) Subject: RE: There are knowns, the unknowns and the knowable..

Wow, I guess I shouldn't be surprised but I'm still a little amazed as to how little sympathy So Dak and other upper Midwest producers get. "Just grow some other crop", like that is even a practical possibility.
There are unknowns and uncertainty with any business but a good business operator tries to reduce those as much as possible. But beyond that, the uncertainty that reaper is so fond of, isn't exactly a opportunity for the grower, it's a risk and risk costs money, either as cost to hedge or an actual loss. I wonder, when Indeep goes to breed sows does he deliberately use a technique that increases the risk that his pigs won't breed? I suspect not. And the hardware store owner, sure he buys lots of different kinds of stock not knowing just what his customers will buy but he knows that on average customers always buy some items at some interval and adjusts his inventory with experience. He doesn't buy just two or three kinds of items, he buys hundreds of different items. Hardware stores are not a valid example here. A better example might be the big retailer who buys their Christmas stock in June.
The thing is, we can't know this year's crop weather, we can't know just how much damage ASF will cause in China and how that will affect soybean demand but the outcome of the trade negotiations are knowable and we shouldn't have to wait until July to know it.